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Friday, 17 November 2017

"I'd like to hear an example of a country where Corbyn and McDonnell's ideas have worked"

The bald man in the BBC Question Time audience demanded answers from the Labour shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry, but he wasn't remotely interested in what she had to say, because he'd already diligently rote learned his political opinions from the right-wing media.

When he said "I'd like to hear an example of a country where Corbyn and McDonnell's ideas have worked" you might have imagined that he was interested in listening to the answer, but when Thornberry replied "most of central Europe" and when pressed to name specific countries she said "Germany" and "Sweden" he sneered derisively as if she was the delusional one.

Jeremy Corbyn wants to reverse the extreme Tory cuts to Corporation Tax that have been going on since 2010. He plans to increase the rate for major corporations to 26%, while setting a lower rate of 21% for small corporations. 26% would still be the lowest rate in the G7 advanced economies, which means Corbyn's tax policies are so far from being extreme-left that they're actually more pro-corporate than the USA, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada!

One of Corbyn and McDonnell's most interesting ideas is the establishment of a National Investment Bank in order to fund future infrastructure projects. Other countries that have National Investment Banks/Sovereign Wealth Funds include Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, and the Chinese economic powerhouse actually has several.

Perhaps if you're so rabidly right-wing that you think Texas is an extreme-left state awash with commies and Marxists you might believe that Corbyn's energy policies are extreme-left, or maybe you've got some semblance of a grip on political reality?Corbyn and McDonnell also want to renationalise the railways. There are several countries in the developed world with national rail companies including France, Norway, Singapore, Hong Kong and Italy. The really interesting thing is that under the Tories' shambolic privatisation agenda these foreign state rail companies are actually running 74% of the franchises on the UK rail network, and the only country that is banned from bidding to run UK rail franchises is the UK itself.

Then there's the policy of reversing the Tory strategy of carving up the NHS and distributing the pieces to profiteering corporations (including corporations run by major Tory party donors). You don't have to look very far for an example of a successful not-for-profit public health system. The NHS itself was doing brilliantly before the Tories set about vandalising it. The NHS was ranked as the most efficient health service in the world, and had the highest approval ratings ever, then the Tories imposed huge austerity cuts and imposed a massive top down reorganisation called the 2012 Health and Social Care Act. Since then waiting times have skyrocketed, huge numbers of A&E units, maternity wards and walk in centres have been axed(often against furious local opposition), NHS staff are overworked, underpaid and demoralised and huge numbers of people are dying as a consequence.The truth is that we don't have to look abroad for evidence that Labour's policies work, we just have to look at the devastating ideological vandalism the Tories are inflicting on the NHS, and recognise that Labour have pledged to stop the vandalism and set about reversing the damage.The problem of course is that vast numbers of people are so shockingly gullible that they simply believe what the mainstream media tell them about Jeremy Corbyn being some kind of terrifying leftist bogeyman with bonkers extreme-left policies. They're unwilling to even consider the fact that most of Corbyn's headline economic policies are commonplace across the developed world, and in fact it's radically right-wing Tory policies like handing control of state schools to private sector pseudo-charities, privatising police services, and vandalising the health system that are desperately unpopular, and pretty bloody rare in successful developed economies.

So the big question has to be how do we reach out to people who are so damned gullible that they uncritically rote learn the mainstream media propaganda about Jeremy Corbyn being an extreme-left bogeyman, and sneer derisively when anyone points out the fact that Corbyn's policies are absolutely commonplace across the developed world while the Tories are the ideological extremists?

How do we reach out to people who prefer to believe in mainstream media lies than in observable reality?

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6 comments:

This answers the question "I'd like to hear an example of a country where Corbyn and McDonnell's economic ideas exist" not necessarily where they "have worked". You are just saying "Canada has idea X", but not saying if it's really worth the effort of nationalising it and if people are better off with it.

@anonymous Well if you want to see whether they have worked or not, you can easily compare... Norway's Sovereign Wealth fund is is extremely successful and pretty well known - just Google it.The benefits are obvious, no? Rather than borrow all your money from private investors, you can build things yourself? Not need to generate profit on it? I mean surely this makes sense.

The corporate tax rate... Well, I guess that's not what you're asking about.

In the case of the rail network, just look at the failure of the current model, and then look maybe at the East Coast line as an example of a well run national operation: the franchise failed, it was renationalised, returned to profit, taken over by virgin, then failed again.So much for the "efficiency" of private companies.

I would go further and get rid of all the means tested benefits and give everyone a minimum national wage. I would like to know where all our billions of tax revenues are going and how much waste and mis-management is going on. I work in a school and its incredible how much cronyism and low level corruption is going on.

People, even trad Lab voters, are genuinely confused about Labour at the moment. They want what Labour are offering, but are constantly told that it's unrealistic, naive and, in fact, dangerous. The most common political position currently is Bloody Politicians Only in it for Themselves. That is completely due to the main TV outlets and tabloid headlines. Most people don't look any further than that to inform their opinions.

Norway was able to build a huge sovereign wealth fund because it had lot of oil and only about 5 million population. It's not a model for the UK (although it might have been for Scotland, if they'd become independent circa 1980).

The UK could have created a sovereign wealth fund, instead Thatcher used the proceeds of the North Sea to reduce taxes.True the fund would not be as large as Norway's, but it would be better than what we actually did with the money.